


Shadow of the Day

by Trash



Category: Hoobastank, Linkin Park
Genre: Brad has serious issues, HIV/AIDS, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:58:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brad hurts Chester in the worst way possible. So Chester gets revenge in a way that lasts a life time</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow of the Day

How it all happens is Brad and Chester are fighting. Again. This time it’s because Brad decided that getting drunk and sleeping with Dan Estrin, the guitarist from Hoobastank, was a much better idea than showing up at Draven’s birthday party.

Chester gets angry instead of upset and screams directly in Brad’s face, “You fucking adopted him so we’d both be his parents. How would you feel if one of your parents didn’t show up at your seventeenth birthday and went and slept with someone else instead?”

Brad just splutters helplessly. He hadn’t meant to cheat on Chester. Least of all with Dan, who he had just gone out for a few drinks with. And it’s not like he had forgotten Draven’s birthday. Ever since he and Chester got together when Draven was a toddler they’d talked about adoption.

With Sam gone, along with half of Chester’s money, they both agreed that Draven needed two parents. And since Brad had fallen for Chester harder than he’d fallen for anybody in his life, they both hoped to be together for years to come. It all made sense. And they made it happen.

But now this…

Chester gets revenge instead of depressed. Sleeps with Scott Weiland. And when their lips meet the pair gasp, “Finally.”

The next morning Brad asks, “Where were you last night?”

And Chester tells him the truth out right. “We fucked,” he said, “And it was fucking amazing.”

Revenge is sweet. But Chester is left watching Brad storm out of the house with a bitter taste in his mouth.

***

After that everything goes down hill. Chester’s health has always fluctuated, but this is ridiculous. Brad makes him go to the hospital.

Blood tests. Urine samples. Family histories.

Then, later, test results.

Tears.

And the words, “Don’t cremate me. I don’t believe in that ashes to ashes shit.”

***

With Chester gone, things get harder than they were when he was sick. Brad walks into the living room to the sight of Draven and his girlfriend Holly making out and he blushes and looks away, clears his throat.

“Dad,” Draven hisses and straightens his shirt. Holly smiles, embarrassed, running a hand through her hair.

“Your um, your mom’s on the phone Hol’.” He says, still not looking up at them.

Holly smiles and, as bright as it is, there’s a sadness there. An understanding. He smiles back and stands to the side to let her out into the hall where the phone is. He shuffles over to the couch and flops down next to Draven, saying “So…have you guys…”

Draven glances at him then shakes his head, “N-no. Not yet.” He plays with his hands in his lap, twisting Chester’s ring around his finger, “I’m waiting. She says she’s not ready.”

Brad searches for something to say. Draven is so grown up now, and with so little help from him. Chester would have the right words to say but Brad just feels awkward. He nods slowly and smiles. “Good,” he says, “I-”

But then Holly walks back in and smiles her beautiful smile, “My mom wants me home.”

“Oh okay,” says Draven, sitting still until Brad elbows him in the ribs and he jumps up, wrapping an arm around her waist and leading her out. He smiles to himself until he hears the door close and Draven heads back in. He sits down beside Brad, his long legs bent so their knees brush. “She’s worried about me,” he says with a small smile, “and you too.”

“Me?”

Draven nods, “Yeah. She says I have to watch out for you. So I’m going to.” He slaps a hand down on Brad’s knee and smiles faintly. “Just so you know.”

Brad places his hand over Draven’s lightly and smiles, “You really are your father’s son.”

***

Brad makes them both breakfast and tries to smile cheerily as Draven shuffles into the kitchen with his dog, Red, trailing in behind him. “Morning.” He says, serving up the food.

“Mornin’.” Draven says with a wide yawn, shuffling over to Brad and kissing his cheek. This is something he hasn’t done since he was a little boy, but more and more he is reverting back to childhood. The way things used to be. When it was the three of them and they were happy.

His face lingers near Brad’s until he turns to face his son and their noses brush. Then their lips brush in an innocent kiss. It’s Brad who steps back, his face paling, but Draven doesn’t seem phased. He says, “It’s okay.” And steps closer, backing Brad up against the counter and kissing him again.

This time it’s not so innocent and neither of them pulls away. Draven tilts his head, flicking his tongue across Brad’s bottom lip before tentatively deepening the kiss. Brad lets it happen even though his mind is screaming at him to stop – he’s the responsible one. But it’s not like this is unbridled passion, it’s all about comfort.

He drops his hands to Draven’s waist and Draven drapes his over Brad’s shoulders as they kiss slowly. Everything about him is like Chester. He remembers old Grey Daze videos and photos and the way Chester looked when he was eighteen. Brad wishes he could see Draven now – he’s the spitting image of him. And with that in mind it’s easy not to push him away. It’s easy to melt against him and dream.

They break the kiss eventually but keep their face close together and Brad whispers, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I know,” says Draven, “But we both need it.”

And so they stand there in the kitchen, holding each other. Slow kisses, gentle touches and tears.

***

Holly and Draven scour the newspapers every day cutting out articles about Chester. Brad can’t read the papers anymore, can’t take reading about it all the time. He scolded Draven at first but stopped, realised that it’s closure that he’s seeking and, one day, he’ll be ready to do the same.

Until then he sits on his bed and stares out of the window. The door opens and he doesn’t look up, but knows it’s Mike when he says “Hey.” He sits down next to Brad and runs a hand through his hair, “How you doing.”

“It’s getting harder,” he says honestly, thinking of Draven and that kiss that haunts his every waking hour.

“I know,” says Mike as if he has any idea how this feels at all.

***

Rob is the only one who seems to get it, sits with him on the swing in the garden shrouded in silence and bad memories, their fingers laced together. He wants to tell Rob about what happened with Draven but all that comes out when he opens his mouth is a choked sob.

He manages eventually, feels like he’s sharing a dirty secret when he says it aloud but Rob doesn’t act like it’s any big deal, says “You both just really need each other right now.”

“Should I…step back.”

“Do you want to?”

The answer is no, but he doesn’t want to say it.

***

Draven comes home from college for his birthday. Brad hadn’t realised how much he’d missed him until he picks him up from the coach station and says, “Hey.”

And Draven just belches loudly, pats his stomach and grins proudly.

His twenty first birthday party could be any one of Chester’s past parties. Celebrities galore, alcohol flowing, music blaring. Brad fights not to feel out of place, even though Draven made him invite his friends too. So the rest of Linkin Park are there, and Hoobatsank too. He almost deliberately didn’t mention it to Dan, but then he remembered that it was okay.

Still, he feels dirty having invited him. Chester wouldn’t have wanted him here on his son’s birthday.

But Chester is gone, he tells himself, so it’s okay.

Even Draven says, “Go talk to him,” and “It’s been four years, dad, it’s okay to move on.”

Gingerly, Brad sidles up to the guitarist who is smiling and talking to a fan about their up and coming fifth album release. Brad feels a stab of jealousy. That should be him. This should be Linkin Park’s fifth album. None of this should have happened.

But then Dan’s eyes fall on him and his smile softens with understanding, “Hey, Brad.”

“Hey. Having fun?”

“You’re not.”

Brad ducks his head and says nothing. But then Dan cups his chin and makes him meet his eyes, “Want to get out of here?”

Draven turns away from his conversation with Holly for a second to watch Brad leave with Dan, and smiles broadly to himself.

***

They get drunk in Dan’s car up on Hollywood hills and Brad tells him what happened. He tells him about Chester’s affair, about how his health plummeted and how he caved and told Brad, eventually, that he’d done it with Scott without protection.

Brad tells Dan about how his jaw had dropped and they’d argued about how Scott did hard drugs with the worst of them and that Chester ought to get checked out. But Chester had thought it was all bullshit.

When he got sick the doctors ran tests. They spoke about HIV and the possibilities of AIDS. A week later Chester collapsed in the bathroom. More tests, more pain, more fear. Then he was given a year to live.

Brad told Dan about how he was prepared to spend all day in bed whilst Chester moped as he had done in the past, but instead they just kept on going as normal. Chester said he was so used to being sick that it was okay. He said it with a bright smile.

But Brad found his lyrics notepad under the mattress. And the words there spoke of fear, or sadness, of how he was just going to be gone one day and everything would move along without him.

“Isn’t that true, though?” He asks Dan, taking a sip of beer, “How come nobody else knows that the world has stopped turning now that he’s gone. Why am I the only one who noticed?”

Dan takes the beer from him and throws it out the car window and they kiss. And it feels great. He knows he’ll feel guilty later, but until then he’s angry and sad. Chester left him all alone, he’s allowed this.

***

He stumbles home at whatever time in the morning and crawls into bed. He already has a hangover starting, and plans to sleep it off for as long as he can.

“Dad?”

Brad rolls onto his back and sits up, squinting through the darkness. “Hunh?”

Draven stands in the doorway of the bedroom in just his boxers. His dark hair is a mess and he rubs his eyes. He’s so slim. Tall, just like Chester. His voice is husky with sleep when he says, “It’s eight in the morning. Where were you?”

“Does it matter?” Brad asks, “How long have you been home?”

“About an hour.” He goes to say something more but somewhere down the hall Holly calls out for him. “I gotta go,” he says, almost apologetically.

Brad waves him away with a tired smile. “Good…morning,” he says, and collapses back onto the bed.

***

Brad and Holly go with Draven to the bus station when he leaves to go back to college. “Not long now,” he says, “And I’ll be done.”

Between Brad and Holly, it’s hard to tell who is most glad.

***

For his final project, Draven says on the phone to Brad, he has to write an article about somebody or something that inspires him. He wants to know, is it okay to write about Chester?

Brad smiles to himself, “Make him sound as brilliant as he was,” he says.

And Draven sighs, “I will.”

***

The article is hard hitting, and ends up being published in Rolling Stone which, for a student, is an amazing achievement. Chester’s life story from the person who knows it the best. The only criticism his lecturer gave him was that, at times, it was too opinionated.

Like when he wrote about watching the news one day to find out that Scott Weiland was dead, and that the first thought that entered his head was “good fucking riddance.”

Mike calls Brad when he reads it and says, “Things are going to be okay for you guys, aren’t they?”

And Brad smiles to himself and says “Yeah,” and then, “I guess they are.”


End file.
